


Conversation

by nerdsherpa



Series: A Hole in the Roof: Haleth Lavellan/Commander Cullen [1]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Clan Lavellan - Freeform, Dalish Elves, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-27
Updated: 2015-12-27
Packaged: 2018-05-09 17:06:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5548448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerdsherpa/pseuds/nerdsherpa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cullen finally gets the Inquisitor to open up about her lost clan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Conversation

The last thing Cullen remembered saying was "You make the most wonderful noises." It wasn't going to win him any awards for rhetoric. Usually, he wrote his speeches in advance, and he hadn't expected to spend this afternoon with two fingers deep inside a happily whimpering Herald of Andraste.

Lavellan's response had been to twine slender fingers into his hair and tug, and Cullen had gladly put his mouth to a use other than conversation. Then, they'd simply traded places, much to his relief...

And then he'd been brought back to earth by those same fingers, shyly brushing his curls into a semblance of order. The leader of the Inquisition was sitting up beside him in his bed ( _his bed_ ).

"You'll have to forgive me for the hole in the roof," he said, as her fingers began tracing his jaw. He could tell Lavellan was watching him intently, but the bright beam of sunlight arcing through the as yet unrepaired ceiling and into his eyes kept him from reading the expression on her face.

"I like it." _Ah_. Amusement. "It's almost like we're outside."

"Really? I'd heard that the Dalish ...have a, uh... predilection, for..."

"For screwing in the woods?" Thank the Maker, she was still amused.

"Um, yes. But of course I'd assumed it was —"

"— Racist, superstitious nonsense?"

"...Y-es."

She laughed, but in a kindly way. "You'd be surprised at how appealing the woods can be, compared to the aravel you share with your sister and two cousins."

"Of course. I hadn't thought of it that way." Cullen shifted his head out of the glare, to find that Lavellan's expression was carefully blank and very far away, even as her fingers absentmindedly reached the old scar on his lip.

"I would have loved for you to meet my Keeper," came the whisper.

 _Ah_. This was a conversation he'd been expecting.

He reached up, as nonchalantly as he could manage, and captured her hand in his. Then, in a voice carefully pitched to show concern but not urgency, as the flat of a blade might be turned to stun but not harm, he said: "You never talk about them."

He watched her retreat, in the look in her eyes as they flicked away from his and the bend in her back as she drew up her knees.

"You don't _have_ to —"

"— No, I..."

She shut her eyes. He held his breath.

Finally: "My sister and I were raised collectively by the clan. Our mother nearly died giving birth to me. Afterward she was always frail. She passed over a season after our father was killed while hunting."

Cullen retrieved the blanket from the foot of the bed where it had been kicked, draping it around his own shoulders and then pulling her into his arms beneath it.

"So, there were 'cousins' everywhere," she continued, relaxing against his chest. "Shaeril the storyteller. Sorrand, our crafter. My aunt Meloril and uncle Brador. Little Malle who had such a way with the halla. And our Keeper… Our Keeper had dreams. Not like Solas," she laughed, "not in almost any sense. Dreams for the future of the Dalish. Dreams of entwining our fate with that of the elves in the alienages, of peaceful cooperation between all elves and all humans. That's why she sent me to the Conclave: we knew it was important to human... _everything_. And our First was too young, and I was the best hunter. I'd even ferried messages between our Keeper and city elf leaders before.

"I never expected —" Cullen heard the note of pride leave her voice. "I never —" Her voice broke. She closed her eyes, breathed in, and breathed out. Continued, carefully.

"The road to the Frostbacks is dangerous even without traveling it alone. Once I reached Haven, I still could have been found and executed as a spy. And Dalish clans are always in danger, from bandits, or capricious arls, or _other_ wild animals. Even if I'd survived Haven, they could very possibly have been forced to move on without leaving a trail for me."

Cullen nodded. "There was a Dalish clan living outside of Kirkwall that was wiped out just before the Mage Rebellion. Rumors of blood magic."

She raised her eyes to his face. "Did you know they were the Hero of Fereldan's clan?"

He felt his mouth hang open as the face of an entirely different elven woman come unbidden to his mind. "No."

"The Dalish elf who sacrificed herself to save all of Ferelden, and ten years later..." Lavellan shook her head, mouth twisting. "I left my clan knowing I might never see any of them ever again, but I didn't — I thought I —"

She took an unsteady breath, tears finally crawling down her face. Then, like a dam bursting, she broke down. Arms around her shaking shoulders, Cullen clutched her to his chest.

"What _good_ —" she spat the words between wracking sobs, "What good is being the Inquisitor if _all I can do is save shemlen_?"

"I don't know, love," he said, his face buried in her hair, "I don't know."

 

~

 

"'Love'?"

He wasn't sure how much later it was. Her breathing had been steady for some time, but his chest was still damp.

"I... I really did say that," he answered, almost disbelieving it himself.

And then her lips were on his, fierce and hard. " _Ma'vhenan_ ," she breathed, grabbing fistfuls of his hair again, "fuck me."

He'd rehearsed this speech, too.

"I — are you sure?"

"Yes," she said, sounding just a bit annoyed, "I'm sure that I'll be mourning my clan for the rest of my life and that right now what I truly want is a beautiful distraction."

"No, I meant, are you sure you want— Humans are larger than elves, and I would rather fingers and mouths for the rest of our lives than to ever hurt you," is what he tried to say.

He'd gotten as far as "No, I—" when she straddled him, the heat of her body so close to his cock that he could practically feel her heartbeat. He held on to her waist for dear life.

Someone's hips twitched, and someone else made a completely undignified sound.

"You make the most wonderful noises," she breathed into his ear.

 _Ah_. It had been him.

It was possibly the fastest he had ever gotten hard in his life.

Another shift of her hips and quick work with slender fingers, and he was inside of her. For an urgent, fumbling moment it had been just the tip of him, but then with a great unison sigh from both of them he was, as the chevaliers say, buried to the hilt.

He watched her take deep, slow breaths, felt the muscles in her legs quivering where they were pressed against him, and didn't dare move. But eventually he could no longer stand the suspense, or, frankly, the tantalizing stillness of their bodies. 

"Am I hurting you?"

"No," her laugh thrummed down into him, "humans: You're just generally... _larger_  than elves."

"Is that... alright?" he asked as she bent towards his face.

"It's _amazing_."

"Oh, thank the M—" was as far as he'd gotten when her mouth closed on his, saying one thing clearly: It was time to put it to a use other than conversation.


End file.
